Caring is a beautiful quality, but as T.S. Eliot said it is equally important to know when not to care. One thing Certified Legal Nurse Consultants can’t afford to care about is the attorney who says “no” to you. Caring about the attorney who says “no” creates a fear mindset. Nothing good can come from fear when marketing your CLNC business. Care instead about sharing your expertise with attorneys and fear will lose its power over you.
April 2008: I’m 35 weeks pregnant, as big as a house, and sitting in class to earn my CLNC credentials. I live in Las Vegas, a town famous for many reasons and litigation-happy. I figure I’ll get my CLNC business off the ground while I’m on leave from the emergency department. After all, I’m going to work from home while I raise my daughters, 22-months-old, and almost born. “I’ll read medical records while I nurse in the middle of the night,” I tell myself and even mean it. Jump ahead to August 2008 – I’m still on leave. Turns out, it’s tough to make calls with a colicky infant screaming in the background (or worse, the foreground) and even more difficult to leave the house to meet an attorney.
All Certified Legal Nurse Consultants know that Microsoft’s support for Windows XP has XPired. This means that Microsoft will no longer issue bug fixes or updated protection from “exploits” that fiends will (and have) most certainly develop. Does this make XP inherently unsafe? Not necessarily. As I mentioned before, so long as you STOP USING Internet Explorer as your web browser, you can surf the web fairly safely with either Google’s Chrome browser or Mozilla’s Firefox browser.
As an RN, your day-to-day is loaded with commitments and responsibilities that the rest of the working world can only imagine. Pushing yourself to a breaking point day in and day out for your career is enough to make even the most energetic of nurses feel stressed out. Believe me, I’ve been there, done that, and have the unfortunate grey hair or two to prove it! Thanks to my hair stylist you’ll never see it. That’s why I’m launching this stress study – to get to the root of the nursing industry’s stress epidemic…and you can help! Scroll down to take the 12-question survey: Are You Way Too Stressed Out?
For a woman who lived in the 1800’s Florence Nightingale was one tough cookie. Can you just imagine her bossing the doctors around? LOL! She lived in a time when, as she described, “society forbids a woman to live in the light of intellect.” Yet live in the light is exactly what she did because she never gave or took any excuse.
“I attribute my success to this – I never gave or took any excuse.”
Are you letting excuses (yours or another’s) get in the way of your legal nurse consulting business?
I’m Just Askin’
P.S. Comment and share your favorite Florence Nightingale quotes.
RNs at LegalNurse.com’s CLNC® Certification Seminar sometimes confuse my passion and enthusiasm as “Vickie’s had an easy life and growing her legal nurse consulting business was easy.” They think “After all, if she’d had a hard road she wouldn’t be so chipper and have so much energy.” Trust me, my life hasn’t been easy and in no way do I believe that being passionate about your CLNC business will make your life any easier than it already is.
Passion doesn’t offer any guarantees of easy victory, easy money or easy love. Yet it’s not surprising that the passionate are almost always rewarded with more of everything life, business and love have to offer.
Passion won’t always make your life easier. But it will make your life richer. Be more passionate today!
I’m Just Sayin’
P.S. Comment and share how passion enriches your life.
The NACLNC® Private Apprenticeship group had a great experience last week when we went to court. There was a trial going on and I introduced myself to the court officer. I told him who we were, Certified Legal Nurse Consultants there to observe the trial process. He then went into the judge’s chambers and let the judge know who we were and our reason for attending. Before the trial got started, the judge invited us into his chambers. While there, the judge briefed us on the case we were about to see. He also discussed the parties and players so we had a little background while observing the trial.
The trial itself was a great learning experience. The judge even included us and educated us during the trial. We got to hear the cross-exam of the plaintiff expert, see how they use exhibits, observe how depositions are used in a trial and of course witness many objections. The case was presented by the plaintiff attorney and then the defense attorney presented his case. We also had the opportunity to observe the closing and it was interesting to note each attorney’s strengths and weaknesses as they did so.
We all wear earbuds of some sort. There are the sleek white Apple® ones you use when talking on your iPhone®. There are the tight-fitting ones CLNC® consultants use when listening to music on their iPods® while exercising, riding their bikes or working on their legal nurse consulting business. There are the ones Certified Legal Nurse Consultants wear while relaxing and watching movies on their tablets. And then there’s the funky rubbery one on our Bluetooth® headsets (that makes me look like a Borg while I’m in the grocery store) and the strangely shaped ones on the Bose® Quiet-Comfort silencers that help preserve my sanity on airplanes.
Whatever sort of earbuds you have, they all have one thing in common. They all get dirty. I can’t gross out a nurse by describing earwax because nurses spend much of their days up to their elbows in worse. But I will ask every CLNC consultant to pull your earbuds out of your purse, pocket or ears and inspect them. Yep, they’re probably clogged up with something best left to your imagination (not your tastebuds).
Most presidents only get a day, if any, but it’s no surprise that our nation needs a whole week to honor all of the selfless acts RNs engage in every day. Nurses make life and death decisions and you do so in the middle of the night. Not to mention you do things that make civilians (and some doctors) faint. You have the ability to quickly assess and take control of any situation.
RNs are found in every sector of the economy – corporations, schools, offices, insurance companies, entrepreneurs – not just hospitals. We come from every country on Earth. I’ve met incredible nurses and aspiring nurses from the Philippines, Rwanda, England, India, Canada and Russia, just to name a few. Whatever our nationality, education or nursing position, we all bring unique skills and expertise to our RN jobs.
Whether your role as an RN is Certified Legal Nurse Consultant (my favorite 🙂 ), hospital RN, long term care RN, RN educator, RN researcher or any other role, it’s our week. Let’s celebrate together and toast each other by appreciating our differences and recognizing our similarities. Happy Nurses Week!
I’m Just Celebrating!
On April 17, 2014 the FDA issued a warning to MDs against using laparoscopic morcellators in hysterectomies due to an increased risk of spreading uterine sarcoma. While the FDA did not issue an outright ban of the use of power morcellators, some hospitals have already elected to stop using these devices.
According to Reuters, Johnson & Johnson (J&J), the largest maker of these devices, suspended sales of the morcellator device. Note: J&J has not recalled these devices. The Wall Street Journal reported that J&J wrote in a letter to customers that it is waiting for the FDA and medical community to further clarify the role of morcellation.
At least one lawsuit has already been filed against medical device manufacturers for the death of a 53-year-old woman who allegedly died of metastatic myelosarcoma following a hysterectomy with uterine morcellation. I have also started seeing advertisements by law firms seeking potential plaintiffs for morcellator lawsuits.
In that lawsuit, filed on March 14, 2014 (before the FDA’s warning) there are 27 allegations of negligence against the defendant manufacturers. The following are some of the allegations:
*The opinions and statements made by Vickie Milazzo, the founder of Medical-Legal Consulting Institute, Inc. are based on her experiences and expertise, should not be applied beyond the specific context provided, and do not guaranty or project actual results. Vickie Milazzo is no longer involved in the operations or management of the business, but is involved as an independent education consultant.
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